This is my first attempt at building a speculative Euorack. Any comments would be appreciated. I'm sure I've left something out.
total noob, but to me... the two "best" modules are intellijel's shapeshifter & rossum electro-music's morpheus because you can get so many crazy tones out of them and because of digital modules like those, i like the fat & nasty sound of metasonix's tube VCA.
i wonder if maybe batumi is redundant with pamela's workout. i originally had one in my play rack based on its popularity, but replaced both it AND the quad clock with it because it SEEMS like it does everything both of them can and so much more. it's programmable even, but i could see someone preferring a batumi for live use because of the sliders, but i think you can modulate pamela too, you just need an external controller. try and get an expert ruling on that.
as to the optomix, i'd mount it on the far right as i try to plan each row following the "standard signal chain"
MIDI/controller > LFO & utilities > VCO > VCF > envelop generator > mixer > VCA > effects or something similar to make it easier to visualize patches, but tend to break the sequence to group modules by brand too.
in a small rack, i'd get intellijel's polaris multi-filter. it covers a LOT of territory juicy, rubbery, vocal, chunky, & attitude. other filters might sound even juicier etc., but in all the demos i've watched, it's the analogue that covers the most tonal bases.
speaking of intellijel, their dual ADSR is my favorite envelope generator... very simple & sliders just make more sense to me.
DO NOT take anything i say as "educated". i'm just trying to teach myself this stuff, but definitely check shapeshifter & morpheus demos out to see if they sound good to you ears. they are in the "top row" of my play rack
Thanks very much for the tips!
I'll look into your recommendations. I'm trying to get my head around everything. Lots to learn before I start physically putting things together.
i hear ya... same here too.
what i would suggest would be to go to the "top 100s"page here:
https://www.modulargrid.net/e/modules/evaluationlists
and try to watch youtube demos for both the top 100 rated modules as well as the top 100 used ones. even if you don't watch the videos, the lists can help you create shortlists of "best" (subjective!) VCAs & VCFs etc. as much as i personally can't stand maths... there's a reason it's in both top 100 lists, but you should also go beyond and explore other options.
i was reading a "best filters" thread somewhere, and someone was gaga over the bubblesound SEM filter and there was some talk about oberheim filters. it might be on one of the top 100 lists, or towards the top of the filters list here when you sort by popularity (ANOTHER handy learning tool!) and then when i branched out, i learned about the studio electronics SEM, and liked the way it sounded even juicier than the bubblesound in a demo.
youtube is kind of a hit or miss thing as far as demos go as many of them suck, and you have different people doing different things in them. it's hard to compare the sound of square wave filter sweeps against a filter being used in a "complete mix", but you'll EVENTUALLY learn stuff by accident. there's also a really good modular basics series there by what sounds to be a german guy who explains what modules are and what they do. if nothing else, i learned that function generator really just means envelope generator & LFO, and is NOT some WTF is that category unto itself.
hope eventually you figure out the system that's exactly right for you. there's plenty of variety of modules to choose from for sure, and it is daunting when you're new to it. there's a lot of cross patching this into that and sequencing the other stuff people do i'd NEVER want to be bothered with. i'm coming at more from the perspective of wanting to cram a room full of basic synthesizers in a little box... a few VCOs and a few VCFs, and you have 100+ possible synth combinations. i'll let everyone else do the funky patching thing.
